Action!

A few weeks ago, Joel contacted me about possibly shooting my products on Super8 film. With my previous experience of transferring old films including 8mm and 16mm to digital, I was so excited to have this opportunity! This was such a fun film to make! My products plus Joel’s Super8 camera in a gorgeous garden in Austin, Texas. Featured items include Nephele Steampunk Boots, Pirate Hair Jewels, Steel boned Corsets, Linen Renaissance Skirts, Pixie Skirt, Emily Elaine Lace Capelet.

My hat was a custom creation by GypsyLadyHats, and no, it’s not for sale. 🙂

I first found out about Stonehenge II during my Ancient to Medieval art history class at Texas State University. We were studying neolithic structures, and since Stonehenge fits into that category, a girl in the class brought up Stonehenge II, located only about two hours west of San Marcos in Hunt, Texas. Stonehenge II is a 2/3 scale imagining of what Stonehenge originally looked like.

At lunch that day I shared what I learned about Stonehenge II with my sister and a friend. We were finished with classes for the day, and figured, what the heck! Let’s go see Stonehenge II! We had a great afternoon of playing around the “stones” and taking photos, so it became one of my favorite bizarre places you’ll find in Texas.

Skip forward a few years to a few months ago. The Captain started writing a script for a short film based off of some of his experiences during college. I’d told him about Stonehenge II I don’t know how many times, so he wrote the beginning of the movie to take place there. Skip forward a few more months to this month, and we had a go on project “Zombie Farm.” We set out on a filming road trip to shoot at Stonehenge II in Hunt. After two and a half hours of driving, we got to Hunt, left Hunt, turned around back into Hunt to find a couple of piles of rubble where Stonehenge II was when I first visited.

Not a single website in a quick Google search could tell us about it being anything other than right where these piles of rubble were. Thankfully, several motorcyclists had also stopped and relayed to us exactly what was going on. The property owners were trying to sell it, but couldn’t with the structure there. The Hill Country Arts Foundation is having the structure moved and rebuilt in Ingram, Texas in front of the Point Theatre. Unfortunately rebuilding it and repairing damaged “stones” costs money, and more is needed to complete the structure.

It took me a while, but I finally finished up the new Crimson Rose Productions website. Before it was just a single page with the logo front and center, now we have an about us page, a merch page, and even a projects page! Okay, okay, there’s nothing extremely special about it. But if you tried to donate with the Kickstarter project that was up a up a few months back and still would like to support the films Crimson Rose makes, check out the Merch page. Some of the same items that were offered in return for donations are now available there.

Earlier this month I posted about the KickStarter fundraiser to help submit Perchance to Dream to film festivals around the country. Today at 3 pm was the deadline for donations. Unfortunately we only received pledges for just over 1/3 of the total goal, leaving the project unfunded. KickStarter projects are only funded if the goal is met, returning all donations to the donors. Thank you to all who pledged!

It’s part of a line of Hamlet’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Most, if not all, of us were tasked to read Hamlet at some point in school, but it’s not surprising that most of us don’t really remember the phrase. I sure didn’t, but my husband with his degree in theatre arts chose the phrase as the title for his first short film after graduating from Texas State University. The film did begin at school, as a “if you were going to make a film, this is what you would have to do pre-production” project. He and his group had to come up with a script and do the leg work of approaching businesses that would be willing to have a film shot on their premises.

After we graduated, were married, and moved to Austin, he set the real production of the film into motion. Although I’ve watched plenty of behind the scenes featurettes of my favorite television shows and movies, it was a different experience to be a part of the behind the scenes. The ten minute short was filmed over a week in October 2009. I honestly don’t feel like I did much, I just shot photos, did makeup, appeared in a couple of shots as an extra, and did some running around when Eric would realize that we needed something from the store, like dental adhesive. Anyways, after several months of work, the film was ready to be submitted to festivals.

Eric submitted to quite a few festivals right at the start and found out that submitting to all the festivals available is impossible to do alone. Why? The cost. Each festival has a submission fee, and most of them, well, for us thus far all of them, have said no. There are more festivals for him to submit Perchance to Dream, where we will have a higher likelihood of being accepted. But he needs the funds to submit to the festival with. That is exactly where you can help out at.

By clicking this link to the right, you can easily donate $10 and receive a special thanks note on the Crimson Rose Productions website as well as a free DVD of Perchance to Dream. With a donation of $25, you get the thanks, the DVD, and a free poster signed by the director as well. So help a starting director out, and donate to get Perchance to Dream into festivals!